How is pizza about life and love, you ask?

So here’s where I use that basic crust I referenced in my last post along with the pizza in stages because I’m sure you don’t know what it looks like to construct homemade pizza. I made it free form, recipe-less, because I’m trying to be more instinctive with my cooking. I’ve spent a lifetime reading cookbooks and I want to trust myself a little more in the kitchen. It’s part of my broader life plan to go with the flow a bit more. Stop being quite so rigid and see what happens when i 1) try things, just because and 2) learn that mistakes are not the end of the world.

I wrote down my stuff as i did it so I could share it with you 🙂 and show you that you, too, can make something wonderful at home without it being a whole thing.

Caveat: I am not a chef; I’m just an enthusiastic amateur with nothing to lose.

This is the dough I was working with, post refrigeration and at room temp.

This is my stretched dough with cheese and pepperoni where I should have stopped:

This is because I have difficulty with impulse control. Sometimes I don’t stop soon enough. It turned out fine despite this mountain of toppings, but in the middle of the pizza the crust was chewier rather than crispy like it was around the edges. Like it would have been had I not buried it under a load of fresh veggies. My bad.

And the final result, much more colorful and vibrant than this photo would suggest.

But overall, for someone who hasn’t done it in forever I really enjoyed the process and loved the final results. I ate it in one sitting. Don’t judge me, I had only had one apple to eat all day.

Really happy i did it but i followed up soon after this with a recipe for a bread stuffed with pizza toppings that reminded me that perhaps i have issues with food and portion control, as well. Hey, at least I admit it…

Which leads me to the point of this post. Despite my desire to keep all my little foibles secret the truth is, I struggle with things. As we all do. It’s called a vice.

Definition of Vice (Merriam-Webster)

Identify it, isolate it and decide what to do with it. Because it is always a decision what to do with it. And if it’s important enough to be a vice it will likely never go away on its own.

Like with relationships. Sometimes it’s not about love, not really. You think it’s love but it’s just a vice masquerading as something good for you. A vice that tells  you you can’t live without something. A vice that causes you to pile on and smother the darn thing with goodness when you should have stopped at the pepperoni.

But unlike my delicious pizza, which was really no worse for the wear, relationships are not so forgiving. You can really screw those up by choosing to ignore your inability to differentiate between love and a strong vice to make it work at all costs. It might feel like you have no control and you can’t choose to let go. You can. You might choose not to, but if you see the same issues popping up in every relationship, maybe it’s your vice running the thing.

That’s why I love puttering in the kitchen, it helps me identify my impulses. Because if it’s an issue in the kitchen you can be darn sure it’s an issue in life. What about you? Any relationship vices you’d like to share with your girlfriend Ava? 🙂